California Releases Preliminary Guidance for 2025 Pay Reporting Cycle: What’s New + Your 5-Step Employer Action Plan
The California Civil Rights Department (CRD) recently released preliminary guidance, FAQs, and reporting templates for the 2025 pay data reporting cycle (reports currently due May 13, 2026) . These materials outline significant changes that will impact how covered employers prepare and submit their pay data reports. While the guidance and templates may not ultimately be the final versions for the reporting cycle, employers should review the information for advance planning purposes. This Insight explains what’s new this year and provides a five-step employer action plan. What’s New for Reporting? In addition to the traditionally requested information regarding race/ethnicity, sex, job category, and pay band, the preliminary guidance and templates also seek categories of new information. Specifically, the new data fields relate to: Exemption Status – classification as either exempt or non-exempt for minimum wage and overtime purposes. Employment Type – categorized as f...